Backing up MySQL

I don’t know very many people that haven’t been devastated by the loss of data… Yet I am baffled that millions of professional IT workers still ignore backing up their data. Since computers are great at doing repetitive things like backups (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup).. why not spend 20 minutes setting up your machine to backup your files for you. This guide will be specific to mysql (http://www.mysql.com) to create a local copy of the backup. Then read my other guide about copying files securely to a remote backup server for the 2nd part.